Jack Black Is Sorry, Not Sorry About His YouTube Gaming Videos

“No gaming videos this week,” Jack Black said apologetically at the start of his latest video on his gaming channel on YouTube. And also the one before that. And the one before that. And, well, you get the idea.

Back in December, Jack Black and his beard launched a YouTube channel called Jablinski Games. This was a surprise, because Black is very famous for being in movies like School of Rock and bands (that are also movies) like Tenacious D, but not even a little bit famous for playing video games. After an exceptionally brief announcement video, nobody was quite sure what to expect.

No, Black went way back—to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. There, he played pinball and cracked dad jokes.

The next week, he kicked off what is now a trend: He mentioned hypothetical viewers who are waiting for “real gaming videos” and then apologised, telling them they’re gonna have to wait a little longer. Then he went to an arcade called Round One in Los Angeles, played games like Dance Rush, and cracked dad jokes.

This time, his two video editors, one of whom is his not-quite-teen son Sam, really stepped up their games, placing a tiny, dancing Sans from Undertale between two giant images of Black’s face singing along to Undertale song “Megalovania”—something I never thought I’d see in all my days and, frankly, am still not sure I actually have. The video ended with Sam being mortified by his dorky dad’s antics. It was wholesome as all heck.

His fans love the bit. “Jack: ‘No gaming videos this week.’ [Plays an OG video game every episode],” reads one of the top comments on last week’s video, echoing top comments on basically all his other videos.

The past few weeks, he’s taken to blaming Twitch king Tyler “Ninja” Blevins for his lack of proper gaming content, claiming that Ninja stole his “Del Gato” capture card out of fear that Black would steal his throne. His most recent video, released last Friday, is titled “Ninja responded.”

In it, Ninja from South African hip-hop group Die Antwoord cursed out Black for accusing him of playing Fortnite. Then Black played “the first ever game”: Senet, an ancient Egyptian board game whose rules Wikipedia says are “the subject of conjecture.”

At the end of the episode, he promised that this week, he’s going to shave his beard and “get to some real gaming.” If either of those things actually happen, I will eat Jack Black’s beard.

Comments

"Hey now, you're an all star!" was my fave bit so far. Other than that, it's like he's going out of his way to not actually get to any point. I like that Ninja from Die Antwoord finally addressed his not-as-awesome Twitch counterpart. They should fight now as there can only be one.

Yeah. I'm confused too. I took the Rainier Wolfcastle remark as "The point of Jack Black's videos is that there is no point" (which I did, honestly, not pick up on). And then I did a quote of his stand-up scene presuming that's what the .jpg you were referring to was.

Nah, i'm not clever enough to pull that off. Imagine how awesome the meta outcome would have been, though! It's would have been like we were Malcolm in the Middle, turning around and talking to the camera.

I love his videos. They're only good because he doesn't play modern trendy games. Why streamers are such a big thing I'll never know. I think this is a genius idea and he's the only one who could have pulled it off. It's honestly the most wholesome channel I've ever seen, which is one thing all the rest are missing. One of his weekly videos could simply be 5 seconds of him hugging his sons and I'd be ok with that, he's the dad a lot of us needed/wanted.

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